Anurag Kashyap opens up on failure of big budget Bollywood films, gives reason behind Aditya Chopra’s YRF’s failures

Anurag Kashyap says Aditya Chopra should not interfere in all the departments of a film and let talented people hired for that specific role do their job.

New Delhi: Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap is currently busy promoting his upcoming film ‘Dobaaraa’ that stars Taapsee Pannu in the lead. The filmmaker was at his candid best and opened up why recently big budget Bollywood films have failed to impress the audiences. Anurag gave the example of Aditya Chopra’s Yash Raj Film studio and their big budget flops Aamir Khan’s ‘Thugs of Hindustan’ and Ranbir Kapoor’s ‘Shamshera’ to make his point. 

Anurag claimed that there is a culture where studio heads dictate things to their directors and claims that it has not been working out. He blamed the failure of Thugs of Hindustan’ and ‘Shamshera’to studio head Aditya Chopra following a ‘Trial Room effect’ where previous hit films are made a reference for creating content rather that real life experiences.

Speaking to Galatta Plus, Anurag said, "In Bollywood, cinema is largely controlled by those people and that too second generation that has grown up in trial rooms. They have not lived life so the referencing is based on cinema. So what is not on screen can't be cinema to them. The biggest problem with YRF is the trial room effect. You take a story and you want to make a Pirates of the Caribbean out of it, so it becomes Thugs of Hindostan. You take a story and you want to make Mad Max: Fury Road out of it, it becomes Shamshera. The same Shamshera would have worked two-three years back, at least much more than how it has worked on. Now, people are exposed to OTT."

Anurag said big studio heads are out of touch from reality and live a cocooned life and when they meddle with content with ‘safe’ options to package a hit, it is not working anymore.

“ou have one person sitting in a cave, who doesn’t know the world outside, dictating how everybody should be making their films and telling them what to do. Obviously, you’re digging your own grave. You have to empower people, you can’t dictate terms. That time is passe now. If Aditya Chopra has hired a bunch of people, he needs to empower them and not dictate them, not control the casting, not control everything. Sit in your office, hire good people if you trust them, and let them make their film. Which is the mistake he makes. He doesn’t let them (be),” he added.

Anurag praised Karan Johar for breaking out of this trap and empowering the people he has hired to make films their own way.